Does Your B2B Brand Need Fast Twitch Content?

One thing we know – the audience craves content. People devour content these days, and they’ll look just about anywhere to find the right information.

In a world with everyone racing through their workday at ridiculous speeds, does your B2B firm need “fast twitch content?” Do you need to create content quickly to meet the audience’s never-ending, voracious appetite for content?

If you pay any attention to fitness, you’ve at least heard about the idea of fast twitch versus slow twitch. Fast twitch muscle enables explosive movements – think of a boxer’s jab – while slow twitch muscle is useful for endurance-oriented endeavors such as running a marathon.

Fast twitch content equates to Real Time Marketing, which was a big deal a year ago but is something you really don’t hear about anymore (marketing trends! Don’t blink!). Everyone got irrationally exuberant about Real Time Marketing when Oreo came out with a fairly mediocre-but-viral social ad when the lights went out at the Super Bowl in 2013. It was viewed as amazing that the marketing team from Oreos could turn around the ad within just a couple minutes, and when the thing caught fire, it seemed obvious that fast-reacting marketing was the way to catch attention.

But here’s the thing.

Delivering this type of fast twitch marketing is all-consuming; doing it well requires having an always-on newsroom that can spot trends and produce content quickly in order to meet the moment. If it takes a couple days – and sometimes if it takes a couple hours – the moment is gone. Operating this way gets really expensive really fast. There is also the question of whether a B2B audience wants.

Generally speaking, a B2C metabolism runs quicker than a B2B metabolism. Fast twitch content makes a lot more sense for a consumer audience. When you’re marketing to a B2B audience, buying decisions are typically slower; the buyer’s journey is more painstaking and focused on education. In other words, I’m spending a little less time considering the purchase of a cheeseburger compared to committing to a new CRM system. When your prospective customer is searching for that CRM or for some other vendor, they’re looking for a reason to consider getting into business with you – they want to have an idea that this partnership will be beneficial for the long haul – they want to trust you.

You can get prospects’ attention with fast twitch content, but you really can’t win their trust. You can’t move them along the buyer’s journey.

There is also the very real possibility that fast twitch content can undermine the trust you’re trying to build. Consider the incongruity of an accounting firm offering its hot take on Oscar Night – no one really cares what you think about Anne Hathaway’s dress, and you’re very possibly negating whatever confidence I may have in your firm.

Yes, fast twitch content can be fun. It can be energizing. It can help to make a name for your firm. But will it keep that attention? If that’s all you’re doing, the answer is almost certainly “no.”